Don Burke more koi than coy

Andrew Hornery -Jan 19, 2013

PRIVATE SYDNEY

There was a time when Don Burke had a direct line to Kerry Packer, but these days the former media power player, who discovered the likes of Jamie Durie and who was welcomed into millions of lounge rooms across the country, admits his calls no longer go straight to the ''boss''.

''These days I am referred to more junior people,'' Burke laments, with just a hint of bitterness as he and his wife Marea work on the final issue of their once beloved Burke's Backyard magazine.

Burke's partner in the venture, the German publishing giant Bauer Media, which bought the former Packer-controlled ACP Magazines stable last year, announced over Christmas the title would be scrapped amid falling sales and advertising revenue.

Along with the magazine going, Burke has found it particularly gutting that about 20 ''loyal and dedicated staff'' have faced the axe as well.

He suffered the ignominy of having his once top-rating television program killed off in 2004 by television executives, a decision Burke described as ''stupid'' at the time.

Having remortgaged the family home to keep his dream alive, these days Burke has also been forced to find tenants to take up space in the near-empty Chatswood offices where he pioneered his once-great empire.

Portrayed by disgruntled former employees and some associates as an egomaniac control freak, Burke argues he's simply a perfectionist who ''wants to give the audience what they want'', after all it was he who ''invented'' the lifestyle television format.

The tell-tale signs of demise can be seen clearly in the Chatswood building's foyer, where a lone koi carp lives in a pond, a former champion fish worth hundreds of dollars.

''We used to have about five of them, but they started dying off. Every now and then one would attempt to escape and we'd come in and find a fish lying on the floor,'' Burke recounts, the fish story becoming a clear analogy for his own career. ''It is time for us to take a step back and look at what we do and work out how we can do something relevant for the market.''

It's been 30 years since Burke founded his empire, setting up his own production and media company called CTC Productions with Marea, daughter Chris and son Sean.

CTC, he explained, ''stands for Cut The Crap … it was a reminder for us to always remember to listen to what the market wants. I often wondered how television executives had any idea about what the average Australian family wanted to watch when they were off skiing in Aspen.''

Rinehart clan storms Hollywood

By all accounts it was a hell of a bash, with mining heiress Ginia Rinehart taking over Hollywood's Bel Air Hotel last weekend for her engagement party.

PS hears the mother of the bride-to-be, Gina Rinehart, managed to make it to the event, though there were rumours she had earlier been by the side of a friend who was gravely ill.

No word has emerged on who the friend was. However, some sources suggest it could be the billionaire's mysterious long-time companion ''Bob'', first revealed in last year's unauthorised biography of Rinehart by the Herald journalist Adele Ferguson.

Not much is known about the 83-year-old Bob from Bowral, who Ferguson wrote was the husband of a late friend of Gina's deceased mother, Hope . These days, Bob joins Rinehart aboard the luxury cruise ship The World where the mining magnate has a vast private suite.

Initially the Bel Air event was thought to be the wedding of Ginia, who is set to walk down the aisle with Ryan Johnston in the near future. Johnston, an American, is the son of Beach Boy Bruce Johnston.

It was Bruce Johnston who told reporters in Perth last year he would soon return for his son's wedding, effectively letting the cat out of the bag about the engagement and the happy event taking place within one of Australia's most intensely private families.

However, there have been rumours of tension in recent months between Rinehart and Johnston snr over an alleged request from the family that the new in-laws sign strict confidentiality agreements.

Ginia Rinehart is the only one of the billionaire's four children who is not suing her mother over the multibillion-dollar trust set up for them by their late grandfather Lang Hancock.

Her childhood friends from Perth report the 25-year-old ''loves a party''. Ginia, who until recently worked as a publicist for purveyor of fine jewellery Faberge in London, has been absorbed into the mining business, though she has also managed to scour the globe for a wedding dress, investigating some of the most famous designers in the world including New York's Vera Wang, Giorgio Armani and Paris' Christian Dior.

An Oscars de la Renta?

With some of the biggest names in fashion throwing their frocks at her, Jacki Weaver is clearly lapping up the sartorial largesse being afforded her in the lead-up to next month's Academy Awards.

But Weaver, who wore a Collette Dinnigan gown to the Oscars when she was nominated for best supporting actor in Animal Kingdom (2010), admits this time around she has a dilemma on her hands.

While both Alex Perry and Dinnigan, who dressed her in a black lace number at the G'Day USA gala last Sunday, have made it clear they would love to dress her for this year's extravaganza, she is not likely to be back in Sydney before the awards and therefore will not be available for the all-important fittings such a gown requires.

Weaver told The Wall Steet Journal: ''I'm wondering whether to wear an American [designer's] dress or a European dress or an Australian dress. I always feel I should be loyal to our local designers … But I don't know if I will get a chance to go home because I am going to Texas, so it might be an American designer. We'll see.''

Surely this cannot be: a national treasure on show but not showcasing an Australian designer?

At the ripe age of 65, Weaver is enjoying a career high when most of her contemporaries are contemplating retirement. Along with that popularity comes the celebrity goodies such as the frocks, shoes and jewels to wear to awards shows.

Weaver told Today's Richard Wilkins that while the gowns usually have to go back, she was looking forward to ''getting a new pair of heels''.

This awards season has seen Weaver wear some, ahem, interesting creations, from the emerald green frock by the American bridal designer Pamella Roland, featuring ''silk chiffon flutter sleeves'' on the Golden Globes red carpet on Monday, to the somewhat less successful sky blue chiffon V-neck gown with shoulder cutouts by the Lebanese ''fuller figure'' designer Rani Zakhem she wore when she received her Critics' Choice Award last week.

Kidman's way of grace

Nicole Kidman is probably not too perturbed by the Grimaldi family dishing the Hollywood take on the late Princess Grace in which our Nic plays the titular role. Kidman confided to PS in November that she had intentionally avoided meeting any of Princess Grace's family in order to bring the character to life, though she was clearly keen to ''do her justice''. Kidman is now due on the London set of Ridley Scott's suspense thriller Before I Go To Sleep, in which she will play a woman who wakes up every morning remembering nothing. Her husband tells her she suffered a trauma, and that she dare not leave home, but she sneaks off to a doctor who gives her a small digital recorder and urges her to play back her thoughts day after day to re-ignite her memory, only to realise the man sleeping next to her isn't her husband.

Aussie power

A new generation of Australian actors are taking America by surprise, figuratively. Clare Bowen, who attended the University of Wollongong and appeared as the female lead in 2009 Aussie flick The Combination, is being hailed in the US as a ''breakout'' star of the hit series Nashville, in which she sings country and western and speaks with an American drawl, meaning most of the audience has assumed she was American. Similarly Zero Dark Thirty actor Jason Clarke has been hitting the chat show circuit in the US. This week he was on The View's couch, and again the likes of Whoopi Goldberg were surprised to learn he was actually an Aussie.

Kylie on TV

A week after she split from her manager of 25 years, Terry Blamey, and confirmed she was taking a break from singing, Kylie Minogue is to return to television in a black comedy drama on Britain's Sky channel. She will appear in Hey Diddly Dee opposite Homeland star David Harewood in the murder mystery about a group of actors putting on a play about Andy Warhol.